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Submission + - World's First Dolphin to English Two-Way Translator is on its Way to Us (ibtimes.co.uk)

concertina226 writes: Scientists expect to be chatting with dolphins this summer after researchers developed a computer program that analyses dolphin whistles and translates them into English.

Together with Dr Thad Starner, the technical lead researching Google Glass at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the researchers have created the Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT), the world's first prototype dolphin translator.

CHAT is a small underwater keyboard fitted to the arm of a diver. It has four symbols which correspond to four artificial whistle sounds that researchers have taught the dolphins to mimic. Each sound represents an item the dolphins like to play with, such as seaweed, rope or a scarf. By pressing a button on the keyboard, the diver can activate a sound through an underwater speaker.

Since 2011, they have digitised the database and used it to collect data on all the different whistle sounds they make, many of which the human ear cannot hear, since dolphins' whistles are on frequencies up to 200 kilohertz, which is 10 times higher than the highest pitch a human can hear.

Comment Re: Kickstarter skeptics eat your heart out (Score 2) 300

Pot is illegal here, but I'll trade a copy of "Lawnmower Man - The Game" for DOS, a set of of MSDOS 2.00 source code on 5.25" diskettes hand-labeled by Bill Gates, and a full-height 5.25" diskette drive to read them.

That fulfills your VR jones and your tech-cool jones in a practical way.

Oculus DK-II only, though. That high-latency nonsense is for the birds.

Comment So? (Score 1) 1

I've donated money to a person who was clearly racist. He probably didn't like gay people either. In fact, I don't think he liked anyone.

Why the hell are LGBTBBQ people so darned intolerant of others? Maybe I was wrong about gay people. Maybe they're hateful and mean when they're not being flamboyantly bi-polar. Maybe I should be very angry with them instead.

Jeez.

Submission + - Apple Eyes iTunes Music Streaming and Android app as MP3 Downloads Slow Down (ibtimes.co.uk) 1

concertina226 writes: Apple is now in talks with senior executives of big music labels about the possibility of launching an on-demand music streaming service to rival the likes of Spotify and Last FM, as well as an iTunes app just for Android devices, since sales of Android smartphones now exceed the iPhone.

Digital music sales have fallen for the first time since Apple launched the iTunes Store in 2003, while Music revenues just from streaming and subscription services have jumped by 51.3% globally and have crossed the $1bn (£606m) mark for the first time, and this is where Apple is looking as it changes its iTunes strategy.

Comment Re:I dont get it (Score 1) 551

Pro tip: if the US is backing someone, odds are the someone is a really bad person and we're doing it for a percentage.

Tymoshenko wants the 8 million Ukrainian Russians killed "with nukes", according to an FSB-leaked phone conversation with a Ukrainian parliament member. She apologized though, so that makes it all good.

Odd that the US hasn't warned these morons that Russia has an NSA-equivalent, but then, we don't care what they do to each other as long as they pay the interest they're about to owe.

Comment Re:I dont get it (Score 1) 551

Neocons McCain and Nuland actively took part in the protests in Kiev, and promised the dissidents money from the US and EU that they would/could never deliver.

Broken EU promises of bailouts is why Yanukovich sided with Russia "suddenly and mysteriously": there were 15 billion good reasons to do so. Putin is a thug and a maddog killer but he doesn't play the con-games that the EU and US do.

The US fomented that coup thinking that Russia would roll over, or at most start a huge skirmish and kill a few hundred thousand people that we don't give a rat's behind about. Then we would be able to sell ICBMs and ABMS on credit to people (aka "muppets") that can't afford toilet paper, and Russia would be a step closer to rolling over and accepting ECB/IMF's terms of surrender. It didn't work that way.

Now, Ukraine will be the next Greece/Cyprus and the Ukrainian people will get the rubber-stamp bailout package, and hand over all their wealth to the ECB and the IMF.

Either you're trolling, you're that clueless, or next, you'll say the US had nothing to do with Mossadeq and installing a madman dictator over Iran in 1953.

Comment Re:I dont get it (Score 1, Troll) 551

"A civilized approach would have been to approach the Ukrainian government, asked them for it and offered a pile of money for it"

Which Ukranian government is that? The one that Ukraine elected, or the one that the US installed?

If you mean the former, then I think your condition was already met. If you mean the latter, then you just might be an incurable neocon warmonger with a ton of rhetoric that needs to go somewhere, anywhere, quick as a banker's pocket picking hand.

Comment Re:This is a propaganda war first of all (Score 1) 623

If you believe in democratic process, if you subscribe to liberty, then you must accept the vote whether it wads your panties or not.

The US is playing its "Hypocrite Card" very very poorly.

It makes us look petty and weak to Russia and China, when we're really just following Zbigniew Brzezinski's 1997 book, "The Grand Chessboard" in true neocon fashion. I guess Bushbama can't formulate foreign policy on his own, so he lets the predi-fascists do it for him.

The warmongers are no longer in favor. We The Peeps are done with their ilk. They have the spy network. But we have the arms. We have the rope. Go ahead and side with them.

Comment Re:This is a propaganda war first of all (Score 1) 623

The Crimeans did vote for it. Yeah, that seems at least as legit as purple thumbs in US-occupied Iraq. Moldavia asked to join Russia this morning. 'Because they fear the US'.

I'm sure Moldavia's fear of the US will make any good bully^H^H^H^H^Hneocon smile, but as a veteran who has sworn to uphold/defend the US Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, I've gotta say the enemies in DC are a much greater concern than your Cold War Palinesque fantasy invasion.

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